Public Funding of Religions in French Law: The Role of the Council of State in the Politics of Constitutional Secularism

The 1905 Law on the Separation of Churches and State continues to represent the primary legislative expression of laicite, France's principle of constitutional secularism. While it privatized the formerly established denominations, the law also prohibited any financing of religions by public bodies. Although the legislation represented a broadly liberal solution to the church-state question, more recent measures targeting religious dress have arguably reflected a drift towards a more muscular, even intolerant conception of laicite purporting to confine religious identity to the 'private sphere'. Yet the prohibition on public financing of religion remains a central feature of the politics of laicite. In recent case law, this prohibition has been interpreted in a surprisingly liberal and pragmatic way by the Conseil d'Etat, France's supreme administrative court. This article aims to locate its jurisprudence on the 1905 law within the broader politics of constitutional secularism in contemporary France.